[sdiy] SDIY -vs RoHS - more

[Jason Tribbeck]

Hi,

> But I'm looking at the resistors and caps on a PCI card that 
> happens to be lying around, and I'm wondering how one solders 
> those by hand. They're so teeny; how do you hold them in 
> place while soldering them?

I was lucky enough to convince the company I work for (a software
company) that we needed some hardware, and decided to use their money to
practive SMT soldering - including 0805 resistors.

It's not too bad, actually. What I did was tin one of the pads, then,
with a small pair of needle-nose pliers, held the resistor on to it, and
heated that side up, causing it to stick to that side. It was then
simply a matter of soldering the other side. The only mistake I made was
choosing the wrong resistor value - twice the value as it happened,
which meant I stacked two on top of each other :)

What I didn't do, though, was practice with lead-free solder (I've got
piles of the 'old' stuff around).
--
Jason Tribbeck